ANDERSON-LOPEZ: Well, I will say out of many experiences I’ve had Disney – the people who we have been lucky enough to work with at Disney – there’s a lot of theatrical tradition behind all of the creative choices up at the higher levels of Disney.

LOPEZ: Yeah. Disney is not this sanitized place that you might imagine it to be. I mean, they hired Ashman and Menken after they did “Little Shop of Horrors” which was sort of the “Avenue Q” of its day. It was very campy and very kind of…

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

LOPEZ: …a little off color and racy. And I don’t think Disney has any problem with employing people who have, you know, done off color stuff in the past.

GROSS: Right.

ANDERSON-LOPEZ: It’s funny. One of the only places you have to draw the line at Disney is with religious things, the word God.

LOPEZ: Yeah. You just can’t…

GROSS: You can’t say the word God?

LOPEZ: There was even a – well, you can say it in Disney but you can’t put it in the movie.

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83 Responses to God Frozen Out Of Disney Movies

Again, it seems to me that the analysis that they ban religion because it is controversial suffers from the fact that, according to these writers, religions is the ONLY subject that is banned. There are lots of controversial subjects. All of them, apparently, are fair play.

This is an interesting observation coming from these writers, who have tackled religion in serious ways in the past. So it’s not like Disney has nobody capable of talking about it on staff.

Again, nobody is suggesting that Disney ought to strive to make every movie into a Veggie Tales clone. Or any movie. That’s not what they do. But it’s the only subject, apparently, that’s off the table. And it’s interesting that it gets special treatment.

PS: Listen to the whole interview. There’s a part where they discuss a lyric in a song, where a beautiful your girl croons, “Why have a ballroom with no balls?”

I am not going to go all crazy and complain about that. I actually think that kind of stuff is hilarious. And as a viewer, I actually appreciate it when an artist adds a little edge to something like this. Which Disney artists are free to do! In all instances except one.

Anytime there is a blanket policy with one single exception, that’s interesting. If they said hey writers, you can discuss any sport but golf, any food but asparagus, any planet but Saturn, and day of the week but Wednesday, I’d day gee, I wonder why that is. Especially if other makers of children’s entertainment had regularly inserted such topics into their movies without controversy or notice.

Clearly, these writers tried to insert some religion stuff into a song and were told not to. But thinly veiled references to testicles? It’s a go!

The lack of curiosity in the room about that also strikes me as interesting. Because “it’s controversial” is clearly not enough to earn any other topic a blanket ban.

Have you SEEN the Little Mermaid? The double entendres are basically the only reason I can sit through it.

“When do we get the princess who is beautiful, sweet, and kind, but a bit of an airhead, slightly fashion-obsessed, inclined to meddle in her female friends’ lives, and who has to learn that the nerdy awkward prince may in the end be a much better choice than the good-looking arrogant guy who wants to go hunting every weekend? Is Jane Austen’s spirit quite dead among writers?”

How about “Clueless”? Not Disney, but meets most of the rest of the requirements.

There is Johnny Appleseed, linked above, with “the Lord is good to me…”

Elfego Baca: the Nine Lives of Elfego Baca – in that movie they give a respectful biography of the Hispanic Peace Officer and Attorney in New Mexico which included a reverent view of the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

I guess the secular counter-argument would be, God may or may not exist, but God has a persistent and pervasive presence in human culture, therefore, cultural offerings should have a place for all the beneficial and malicious ways that human notions of God have been expressed over time, and continue to be today.

Of course getting that right without promoting one self as qualified arbiter of Truth takes some careful forethought, not to mention a bit of humility.

To look at another tradition, if a movie ever TRIED to portray Muhammad, no matter how positively, it would be blasphemy to Muslims. Sometimes, the best way to respect religion is to not delve too deeply into it with commercial entertainment.

If I had a quarrel with Disney, it would be its abandonment of traditional Americana. When I was a wee kid, I learned the stories of Paul Bunyan, Mike Fink, Davy Crocket, Tom Sawyer, Brer Rabbit, through Disney productions. That seems to have gone by the wayside in favor of the multi-cult, or brand new PC characters.

Or, another thought – those have already been done so they need to find something else.

If I had a quarrel with Disney, it would be its abandonment of traditional Americana. When I was a wee kid, I learned the stories of Paul Bunyan, Mike Fink, Davy Crocket, Tom Sawyer, Brer Rabbit, through Disney productions. That seems to have gone by the wayside in favor of the multi-cult, or brand new PC characters.

what’s left to say about those folk characters that hasn’t been said very well by those productions?

“‘Oh, yes,’ nodded Pollyanna, emphatically. ‘He [her father] said he felt better right away, that first day he thought to count ’em. He said if God took the trouble to tell us eight hundred times [in the Bible] to be glad and rejoice, He must want us to do it.'”

Dog bites man. Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor. And Disney produces trite, saccharine entertainment that appeals to the lowest common denominator.

Disney owns a lot of subsidiaries, including ABC Family network, which has a lot of “faith based” programming, albeit of the generic, MTD variety. I’m sure if we looked hard enough, we could find other, similar subsidiaries. Hell, if I were Eisner, I might try to snatch up the horrible church-based production companies making these insipid movies with Kirk Cameron and crew. If you keep the costs low, it could be a good return on investment from the mindless Christian sub-culture.

Jim nails it. This was most likely an off-the-wall comment by the Frozen writers. While I think it makes them look rather foolish (you worked for Disney and you don’t even know the content of Disney properties in the past), you can see from all the examples offered here that it’s just an untrue claim.

Just another datum: Pete’s Dragon contains a song, “There’s Room for Everyone On This World,” which concludes with the lines:

So let’s all make sure
we give everyone somewhere to stand
Let’s all make sure
we give everyone somewhere to stand
Just the way God planned it
Just the way God planned

One reason Disney storytelling works is because (mostly) they include what *needs* to be included. Works which include random, propagandistic, preachy elements are quite rightly judged to be *bad art.*

Also, we could catalog all the Disney films which show behavior Christians would approve of, even if Christianity is not explicitly mentioned.

I would think that wanting to sell movie tickets and DVDs in Europe might be an important part of this story. After all there is a Disneyland in Europe. And the places where Christianity is picking up in the global south is often places without people able to buy DVDs or movie tickets.

Plus, religion is only relevant in movies involving people. Would it have made sense to have God in Lady and the Tramp? Of course, it was unavoidable in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” but it was interesting that they removed all the anti-clerical aspect from Hugo’s work.

Disney exists to make profits for people like me (I’m a shareholder (<200 shares, so not a big fish), there, full disclosure done).

Agree with KSS – I’m still known as the mom who would not let Pocahontas be seen at the house. I’m sure Andersen & Hugo were spinning in their graves after what Disney did with their story lines. The Mermaid dies. The Hunchback dies. Who dies in a Disney film? Just had a vision of what a Disney version of the Inferno would look like. Scarier than the original.

Erin Manning ,
I’m saddened by some of what comes out of Disney these days, but still think Disney World is a wonderful place to visit.
The Epcot Center pavillions are staffed by college students from the different countries they represent.One of my son’s kept going back to the French pavillion to see the film. It was a lovely film, but after the 3rd time we suspected it was also the lovely French girls he wanted to see.
🙂
The Animal Kingdom has an incredible restaurant in the African Lodge whose buffet features cuisine from every part of that continent. All the staff are from Africa & have their nation of origin on their name tags.
And we met families from all over the world.
I don’t like everything Disney does but I do think Disney World’s a pretty magical place.The grounds are immaculate & the landscaping’s first class.I’d go back tomorrow.

As long as we’re cataloging religious references in Disney films, the finale of, “The Black Hole” features a fairly conventional depiction of heaven and hell with flames and devils and cathedral windows.

Redfish: Scotty… Your analysis is a bit weird. Before a certain point in recent history, it probably didn’t even dawn on cartoon makers that there was a reason to put a gay character in a cartoon. The issue wouldn’t be the controversy, its that there would be no reason to do it in the first place. There might not be a reason to mention God in a cartoon, either, so there’s that, too.

Just to be clear: I wasn’t attempting to suggest that gay characters should be in a Disney film, or that Disney should accommodate my cultural or political preferences in their screenplays. I was instead mocking Rod’s suggestion that Disney has some sort of duty to include God, by pointing out that others can play that game besides conservative Christians.

At any rate, it certainly would have not been likely to see gay characters in any movie (including negative portrayals) prior to the 1960s; as mere mention of the subject (even in a harsh light) was highly taboo, and completely against the Hollywood production code of the time.

At any rate, I generally agree with you on tokenism–including a token gay character, or Biblical reference, or some other shout-out to some demographic that wants to be acknowledged, is silly. But not all inclusion of non-majority groups is tokenism.

Though we could only speculate what Lopez & Lopez are actually talking about. They don’t only seem to be talking about cartoons.. they mentioned Little Shop of Horrors. But if you go back that far, you find movies with God mentioned in them , too. So I’m just not clear what they’re talking about.

Lopez and Lopez have worked on lots of stuff (including Parker and Stone’s The Book of Mormon–the musical, not the LDS scripture), but it seems clear what they are talking about–Disney likes to keep overt religion out of its animated features.

And given all the turd-fan collisions that result when hot-button topics do get touched, I’m not sure I blame them.

(Sorry in advance for the long post; I’m remarking on a number of things.)

”Is Jane Austen’s spirit quite dead among writers?”

How about “Clueless”? Not Disney, but meets most of the rest of the requirements.

Of course, Clueless was based, loosely but clearly, on Austen’s Emma,

“Well, the Mom is usually gone by the time we join the story…and the wicked step parent is an old old trope. So old, so common, that you’d think it was rooted in biology.”

It might well be. The constant presence of the (wicked) stepmother in old stories may well reflect the frequency with which women once died in childbirth, after which their widowed husbands (with children) would remarry.

what’s left to say about those folk characters that hasn’t been said very well by those productions?

That certainly hasn’t stopped Disney-owned ABC from reworking lots of old characters and stories with new twists in Once Upon A Time. If they really wanted to retell the stories of Davy Crockett, Tom, Sawyer, etc., I’m sure they could. I’m also sure that some of us wouldn’t like the “updated” take on them.

“whose God would you have Disney putting in their movies ”

Oh my! There is a tradition of philosophical theism that stretches across the Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Greek pagan, and Indian Vedantic worlds. How about that God?

There’s also the generic God of MTD who still has a pervasive if mostly cultural presence in American society (e.g., “… so help me God”). That, if anywhere, is probably where Disney would go.

As far as religion in Disney movies, as I recall Fantasia has the scene Night on Bald Mountain with the demon and that is followed by a religious chant (google says it’s Ave Maria).

Yes, Schubert’s Ave Maria. Although, I have to admit that it was quite a feat to make a movie featuring classical music and have so little that was religious-themed.

There is one recent counterexample. […] Between eating Apple pie, playing baseball, and kissing mom, Captain America takes a moment to say, “There’s only one God, ma’am, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that.”

I remember that line. I took it not as as “counterexample” to Disney’s avoidance of religion but rather as yet another attempt to show that Capt. America was still stuck in his dated, parochial, 1940s time warp.

I was watching ‘Pocahontas’ last night […] and my date kept mentioning how attractive and voluptuous they had drawn the title character.

Yes, I remember that being remarked on at the time. As I recall, the Disney animators made a point of drawing Pocahontas to look a lot like Irene Bedard, who was providing the speaking voice for the character.

A friend of mine who lives in New York remembers that when the movie Pocahontas came out, Disney sponsored a big gala premiere in Central Park, which she attended. She said that the evening’s events included a sing-along, and that among the song features was “This Land is Your Land”. This struck her as spectacularly inappropriate for two reasons:

1)“This Land is Your Land” in the context of a movie about European colonization of the Americas?!?

2)“This Land is Your Land” was written by Woody Guthrie, a noted Leftie. The point of the song is summed up in the chorus, “This land was made for you and me” – i.e., for ordinary folks, NOT for big corporations like Disney.

I don’t think that means that Disney is anti-God, it’s just not their place to put their version of God into movies. People get bent out of shape if the wrong guy plays Batman. Imagine how many people would get up in arms if Disney animated their version of God.

Have any of you actually seen “Frozen”? Elsa’s coronation is in an obviously Christian church, officiated by a minister wearing a mitre.

I know this is nitpicky, but if he’s wearing a mitre then he is not a “minister”, he is a “bishop”.

Saw Frozen at a sing-along showing. It was fun! Of course I wanted to train a large magnifying glass on Olaf, but then I usually want to feed any supposedly cute, comic-relief sidekick into a wood-chipper. Just another sign that I’m not part of the target demographic, I guess.

Do you know what Dreher would call Disnified Christianity? Moral Therapeutic Deism.

Erin Manning writes:

When do we get the princess who is beautiful, sweet, and kind, but a bit of an airhead, slightly fashion-obsessed, inclined to meddle in her female friends’ lives, and who has to learn that the nerdy awkward prince may in the end be a much better choice than the good-looking arrogant guy who wants to go hunting every weekend?

Have you seen Frozen? Most of what you write describes that movie. Uhg. I can’t believe I’m defending a Disney movie. Erin, what have you done to me?

On a more serious note, Disney specializes in taking traditional stories and changing them to fit the Disney brand. Even original stories have to fit the brand. I don’t think serious Christians would want that.

Also, didn’t Dreher just post about how victimization can be central to a group’s identity? This example shows that conservative Christians aren’t immune. Maybe he should start a Christian Victimization hashtag.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between legitimate grievances and a victimization complex.

[NFR: Oh, for heaven’s sake, where’s the “Christian victimization” here? I simply found fascinating the claim that the one thing you can’t mention in a Disney film is God. Don’t be so quick to impute the worst motives to those you dislike. — RD]

“If I had a quarrel with Disney, it would be its abandonment of traditional Americana. When I was a wee kid, I learned the stories of Paul Bunyan, Mike Fink, Davy Crocket, Tom Sawyer, Brer Rabbit, through Disney productions. That seems to have gone by the wayside in favor of the multi-cult, or brand new PC characters.

“what’s left to say about those folk characters that hasn’t been said very well by those productions?”

I believe remakes are not unknown in Hollywood. For example, Disney remade The Music Man in 2004. That’s where I learned that 1910s small town Iowa was about 1/4 black.

“Also, any new version of Paul Bunyan would just be a screed about the evils of clear-cutting forests, so why bother?”

LOL.

On second thought, that’s the way in. P. Bunyan could be ‘reimagined’ as a careful, eco-conscious woodsman, only chopping down the most mature, ready to be made into lumber, trees. Always leaving sufficient old growth so the forest could regenerate itself. He (and his new buddy The Lorax) could battle a ginormous corporation that wants to clear cut. Now, how to work in a wise cracking but totally hot female character.

Go watch The Black Hole, if you want to see religious allegory in a Disney movie.

I went to see the movie with my roommate from MIT. I was getting bent out of shape because of the license Disney was taking with the physics, while she was getting bent out of shape because the theology was all wrong.

Trust me–Rod. You DON’T want Disney to start putting Christian religion in its movies–unless you don’t mind them coming up with a weird version that matches no version of Christianity you’ve ever run into.